Doctor Who_ Infinite Requiem Part 4

They saw no one as they rode the escalators, silent and watchful. Trinket was hot, but s.h.i.+vering too.

As they reached the top, Livewire's boot took out the sensor-pads of the computerized barriers in a shower of black gla.s.s. There was no need. Everything was inert. They vaulted over the barriers into the ticket hall. A couple of scavengers were there, rooting in the food stores, but they turned and ran when they saw Livewire. Trinket wasn't surprised. Her hard, cold face was bad enough at the best of times, but now that she was dressed in her father's old combat gear, with her crossbow at the ready, she looked ready to take on anyone and anything Trinket didn't want to know what was going on in Livewire's mind.

Their booted feet echoed in the ticket office, shadows bouncing off the concrete.

Livewire turned sharply at the station entrance, making Trinket and Poly stop in their tracks. 'If this woman won't give us what we want,' she said quietly, 'what do we do?' Her eyes, behind green-tinted goggles, flicked back and forth.

Trinket wondered if this was to be one of those clever questions Livewire asked, where only she knew the answer and she enjoyed watching the others hopelessly trying to get it. Trinket glanced at his other companion. He saw Polymer's chins wobbling, and as he watched she picked a spot absently from behind her ear, leaving a green trail of pus down her neck.

Livewire smiled. 'She's dead meat. Right?'

'Right,' said Trinket a little too quickly, and went pale as he felt his legs shaking beneath him.

'Right,' Poly attested. She sounded bored.

Trinket saw Livewire, his loved and hated half-sister, lower her goggled eyes till they were on a level with his. 'Listen. Trust me. The streets are full of Phracs. Everything's ruined, there's hardly any people here now. Those that could get away did. The only ones left are the total losers, and those who've stayed around to get the benefits. Us.'

'Benefits?' Polymer asked.

'Yes!' The older girl turned sharply to her. 'There aren't any rules any more.

No one to say you have to be back by a certain time. No one to tell you that you can't steal and you can't kill. We are exploring the possibilities of being human.' She looked from one to the other. Trinket tried not to look as dubious as he felt. He was thinking about lumps and crumbs in a bowl. 'Just what is it that you want to do?' Livewire said quietly.

34.It was an incantation, its origins lost in time, and they knew the correct response. 'We want to be free,' Trinket and Polymer answered in unison. 'We want to be free to do what we want to do.'

'All the way, babies. Let's go.' Livewire primed her crossbow and led the way up the stairs.

The lights were dim in the observation gallery of the Phoenix Phoenix. On the walkway, a lone figure stood, his head slightly raised, his hands clasped behind his back.

The guards stationed at either end of the spindly metal walkway had their backs respectfully turned to him. This was a regular occurrence. The captain was here, and he was thinking.

Cheynor knew he had not been sent here to Gadrell Major expressly to fight the Phractons. But he was here to protect the interests of Earth's off-world citizens. Although the major evacuation had already been effected with hundreds of thousands of civilians now transferred to the orbital platform and awaiting the arrival of the relief s.h.i.+p Darwin Darwin Cheynor knew there were still isolated groups hiding out in Banksburgh and the other, smaller settlements, existing on looted goods, some without water or electricity. Cheynor knew there were still isolated groups hiding out in Banksburgh and the other, smaller settlements, existing on looted goods, some without water or electricity.

He felt responsible. But what could he do? Three units had tried and failed to break the Phractons' hold on the city. He had the idea that the general already saw Banksburgh and its remaining inhabitants as acceptable casualties.

The Phoenix Phoenix was safe for the moment, up here in the wastelands, but despite everything they knew about the Phractons, there was still no way of monitoring them, no way of telling what they might choose to do next. was safe for the moment, up here in the wastelands, but despite everything they knew about the Phractons, there was still no way of monitoring them, no way of telling what they might choose to do next.

He knew they existed as separate ent.i.ties, and each had a conscience and a will like a human soldier. Phractons, as hard as it was for some humans to understand, formed attachments and loyalties. If you shot a Phracton, it wasn't like killing a Dalek or a Cyberman. Phractons screamed. They suffered.

They were mourned by their Swarm-brothers.

He knew as much as any human about the Swarm, which was not all that much. A Phracton brain, as well as being linked to its own personal computer, formed a cell of a greater ent.i.ty, constantly absorbing and a.s.sessing information, acting on that information and sending new instructions. They worked faster than any interactive software devices so far developed by the human race. Cheynor felt angered and depressed that the Phractons were their enemies. He had often contemplated the possibility that the two races could teach one another a great deal.

But for now, they were the hostiles. Because they wanted the porizium from a desolate rock with a few paltry settlements. A mineral supply which, in truth, was probably almost exhausted anyway.

35.He was keeping in the back of his mind the thought that the Phoenix Phoenix was not invulnerable. And if the Phractons had not attacked yet, the reason was quite likely to be that they had not yet chosen to. was not invulnerable. And if the Phractons had not attacked yet, the reason was quite likely to be that they had not yet chosen to.

How much did they want Gadrell Major? They wanted it more than Darius Cheynor did, that much was certain.

He lowered his eyes from the night sky. He had realized again that he was fighting a battle he didn't really believe in. Cheynor, whose own personal tragedies still weighed heavily on his heart, had known this for a long time.

He wanted to save human lives, not count bodies in the name of colonialism.

But it was colonialism that paid his salary.

Cheynor sighed deeply, realizing again that, however well he did, it probably wouldn't be good enough for the Earth authorities.

He turned abruptly and strode along the walkway.

'Call Leibniz,' he snapped at the guard. 'Tell him I'm on my way.'

The web s.h.i.+mmered against a blue-blackness, each of its luminous strands carrying more information than any human could process in a lifetime. At its heart, coloured sparks crackled and chased each other's tails like playful dragons, forming a constantly s.h.i.+fting enclosure around a translucent globe.

And in the globe sat the enormous Phracton Commandant.

He had a name, but sixteen of its required inflexions used communicative means and organs undeveloped by any other race. Commandant, therefore, was the t.i.tle he always used in dealings with other races; the translation machines had no trouble with that.

He was the nerve-centre of the Phracton base. From outside, one would have seen the stars and spindles of data being diffused at his globe, unscrambled in the interface, absorbed. It would have been difficult to make out the Commandant's actual form; it was indistinct as that of any Phracton. There was a hint perhaps of a flat, wedge-shaped cranium, moving back and forth, and several extrusions that could have been twitching limbs. They could also just as easily have been electrical cables.

The Commandant had arrived to take personal charge of the situation on Gadrell Major, which up until now had been controlled by his Secondary, cat-alogued as Phracton 4Z-88*. The Commandant was appalled at the unnecessary destruction that had been wrought upon the planet. His experience told him that the citadels of the humans could have been taken and held much more cleanly, and in much less time, too.

He had immediately given instructions that no human was to be harmed unless it directly threatened the life of a member of the Swarm. The Secondary had chosen to interpret these orders very liberally indeed, and the Commandant, in accordance with his rank and powers, had been forced to place in-36 hibitors in the Secondary's neural software. He sensed them now, straining at the borders of the communal mind, gnawing at him. The Secondary was begging again and again to be given a free hand to wipe the humans from what was rightfully Phracton soil.

The Commandant's responding impulses were stern. The soil of Gadrell Major did not belong to the Phractons, he reminded the Secondary; they merely needed the porizium for the ailing members of their race. The same substance had once been needed by humans, to render them immune to a plague, but now they were merely protecting their colony.

Secondly, he enforced the reminder that the Phracton Swarm was not a butchering horde. The race had a long and n.o.ble history of fighting according to a code of conduct, and only a life-form which actively threatened the Phracton Swarm was an enemy. Anything else was to be treated with clemency.

The Secondary sent a vituperative, spitting retort through the web. It was felt by Phractons at the extremes of Banksburgh, and one or two flamers swerved from their true course as a result of it.

Bristling with indignant frustration, the Commandant considered his position. He was wondering if humans fought amongst one another with anything like such virulence.

The Doctor contemplated his latest puzzle, watching the water ripple as Bernice idly tossed bread to the ducks.

Overhead, black clouds were gathering.

He had not immediately gone to the aid of the woman when she had fallen to her knees and screamed in the lobby of the City Hall. Her belongings had scattered over the s.p.a.ce between the two of them, and a diary with a name on it had skidded almost to his foot. It was not a name he knew, but he had made a mental note of it. Obviously. And he had looked around, whirling a full circle, holding his umbrella up like some protective talisman. The Doctor did not always think of the immediate problem. He saw deeper, and further.

Nevertheless, he had been at her side in just a couple of seconds. She was breathing with difficulty and clutching her chest, but she was able to look up at him and meet his gaze.

'You're troubled,' whispered the Doctor. He had one hand on her perspiring brow while the other held his temporal disruption monitor, which, as he expected, was having something approaching an overload.

'The baby,' the girl had said. 'Talking to me.'

'Of course it is. I understand.' The Doctor put an arm round the girl's shoulders as she rocked back and forth. Slowly, the effect of the trauma, or whatever it had been, seemed to wear off. He helped the girl to her feet, made sure she could walk.

37.'Remember me,' the Doctor had said, sternly, and had left for his next appointment. With Bernice and some ducks.

And now, he was wis.h.i.+ng he had not let the girl disappear so quickly.

'I want you to find someone for me, Benny,' said the Doctor. 'A girl cast out by her own people she's our key. She's why the TARDIS brought us here.'

Bernice turned around. Her fringe was over her eyes, but she looked worried. 'What are you going to do?'

'I'm going to find out who owns that car. You go to the City Hall and make inquiries about a girl called Tilusha.'

She nodded, then crumpled the empty bag and threw it into the nearby bin.

'Doctor,' she said, placing one booted foot on the bench, 'is this going to be something important?'

'Yes,' he answered. 'Very.'

'Ah.' There was another silence between them. Behind and to all sides, distantly, the city purred. Nearer, the ducks squabbled and splashed. 'Just us again,' said Bernice eventually. 'Kind of funny, isn't it?'

'Not really,' said the Doctor.

'I mean, now she's gone, who do we send in first when things look nasty?'

Bernice leaned down, waved a hand in front of the Doctor's face.

She shrugged apologetically to the ducks. 'Hmmm. Not a smile. Not a flicker.'

The Doctor stood up, hooked his umbrella into the crook of his arm and straightened his hat. 'It's not a question I'd considered until now,' he said, and his face was creased with concern. 'Back here,' he added as he strolled away, 'in an hour.'

Tilusha was not going to take Phil's car back.

It was irrational, she knew, but if she was going to break from him then that first act of defiance had to be something irrational. She would take the bus back, pack up what she needed and get out.

She hurried along the street, with an even pace, caring not for the puddles she walked in, nor for the people who had to dodge out of her way. She was confused by that pain, and that strange little man, and . . .

Once again, it seemed that she was propelled by something independent of her, yet part of her, a force simultaneously external and internal.

Deep in the back of her mind, where the unfathomable grasped and danced with the forgotten, laughter was echoing.

Laughter was echoing.

Suzi Palsson swallowed. Her mouth tasted of salt and old sleep and its own flesh. She opened her eyes into near-darkness, and saw Shanstra poised, catlike, watching her. Or rather, she saw the silhouette of Shanstra in the 38 dimness of the office, and a pair of burning green lights that could perhaps, in one of her worst nightmares, have been humanoid eyes.

Suzi tried to move her head, and realized she felt strangely lethargic.

Laughter.

In her head.

Don't worry, child, said the voice of Shanstra from somewhere amidst the flotsam of Suzi's memories. said the voice of Shanstra from somewhere amidst the flotsam of Suzi's memories. This is only the beginning. This is only the beginning.

39.

5.

Damaged

'Here we are,' said the Doctor with satisfaction. 'That's what I was looking for.'

The technician stroked his beard rather worriedly. 'Are you . . . quite sure you should be accessing that particular gateway?'

'No,' said the Doctor with a brief smile. 'But I've done it now, so it's best not to make a fuss.'

Terry, the technician on duty in the computing centre of the university, was beginning to have second thoughts about the little man he had allowed to log on to the network. He was sure that the chap had shown him some kind of identification, but he could not actually remember what it had been that part of the last ten minutes was worryingly hazy. Terry, pretending to be busy fixing the jammed printer, had observed the guest: there he had been, sitting calmly among the students at his terminal, occasionally muttering to himself, and swivelling on his chair. And now it looked as if he had managed, from guest protocol only, to enter something that looked worryingly like police motoring records.

The man scribbled down a name and address on a piece of paper and tucked the paper into the top pocket of his jacket. Then his fingers stabbed at a few keys, he clicked twice on the mouse and the screen was back to the usual prompt, with no evidence of the illicit activity.

Terry moved to his shoulder. 'Listen, um '

'You have a problem?'

Terry tried to meet the strange little man's gaze, but it proved tricky. His eyes were always darting this way and that, and at least one of his expressions seemed designed to make you feel as if there were something big and nasty creeping up behind you. 'No,' Terry said. He spread his hands and smiled. 'No problem at all.'

'Good,' said the little man, and he managed, somehow to make that one word sound threatening and rea.s.suring at the same time.

Terry blinked as if something very bright had been shone into his face.

When he opened his eyes, the man had gone.

Outside, it was still raining, and the town was sheened with a cold and slippery layer. The Doctor opened his umbrella and set off, stony-faced, for his 41 destination.

He hoped, as he often did in circ.u.mstances such as these, that he was not going to be too late.

Nita was not sure what to make of the chic, dark-haired woman who had collared her in the ladies' room and asked about Tilusha. Nita, though, was perceptive, and somehow she managed to grasp that something very bad was going to happen to Tilusha if they did not get to her soon.

'Do you have a car?' asked the woman, who had introduced herself as Bernice.

Nita, rummaging in her clutch-bag, grimaced. 'I should be so lucky. Listen, what do you know about Tilusha?'

Bernice shrugged. 'Someone I travel with seems to know something's up with her. That's all.'

Nita faced Bernice. The younger woman's brown eyes opened wide, looking at, or even through, her new acquaintance.

'All right,' she said. 'I believe you. It's something to do with that baby, isn't it?'

The odour of people was disagreeable to Tilusha Meswani. As she clutched the slippery strap that was holding her in place on the bus, she closed her eyes, swallowed and wondered how much longer she could hang on without fainting. There was something particularly offensive about sweat, even more so than other bodily odours. She supposed it was the pungency of it, the way it stabbed her olfactory system in a way that could not be ignored, awakening all the unwashed and unhygienic images she could think of in her mind.

The bus was long and had a concertina section in the middle, which, as far as Tilusha was concerned, made it worse going round corners. She clutched her strap and winced as another sharp turn pulled at her arm.

There was an old man on the seat next to where Tilusha stood, and he was nodding feverishly. She would have been just about able to cope with it if he had been nodding in harmony with the juddering bus. He looked up at her. She saw his eyes like s.h.i.+ny egg-whites, his shrivelled, prunelike skin, and the smile that telegraphed despair hidden behind its showcased gold tooth.